The champ gets tough love from his mama!
Bells. What do we do with her? What do we do with an uninspiring, yet historically important, artifact? Should it be downgraded to a QS thing? Rolled out occasionally for heritage heats? Done away with entirely? What? I remember many years ago when Mundaka was dropped from the tour. It was an impossible tragedy to my younger mind. The stops on the “dream tour” seemed dictated to Brodie Carr from God himself. And of course she was a fickle, fickle wave but she was also stunningly picturesque and had nice traditions, like tossing the winner into the drink.
But just like that, overnight, she was gone. Of course no one except the Basques really miss. And it would be the same, I imagine, if Bells was let out to pasture. Speaking of the past, have you seen the WSL t-shirts? They read: World Surf League. Since 1976. Is that legal to claim? Can anyone make up a start date? Yeah? BeachGrit. Since 408 BC. Is that ok?
And also, Kelly Slater. Our handsome champion. His face is getting a little bit wider, as happens in age, but it really becomes him, I think. He got dumped by Michel Bourez yesterday and admitted to ESPN that he is in a “year long slump.”
When asked if it was time to hang up the jersey (buy here!), he replied, “I’ve been thinking about that for 15 years. I will say even my mum texted me and said ‘maybe you should think about it’. She goes ‘but then again, I said that to you before and you came back and won the world title that year’.”
Watching the man surf, it doesn’t necessarily seem the skill level has dropped precipitously, it just looks like he is on weird boards and just plain doesn’t really care. Which begs the question, why do it? But maybe it really begs the question why not do it? Many retiring pros talk about the grind of life on tour but maybe it isn’t a grind for Kelly. He has been to all the stops so many times he may well have houses, cute little wives and broods of small children in each. Maybe he can’t imagine life any other way.
If you were the champ and had lived your entire adult life around the world would you want to stop? Where would you lay your head, at the end? And, assuming Kelly has a cute wife at each stop, which do you think is his favorite? The blonde and impossibly tan Gold Coast girl? The red head from Torquay? The hearty Sheila from West Oz? The dusky heartthrob from Ipanema? Etc.?
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maybe he will, he seems to be getting good at it.
It gets super old hearing non-stop talk about the dude retiring. Why on earth would he retire if he is healthy? He loves to surf. Period. And the tour travels to the some of the best waves on the planet and these lucky fucks get to clear the line-ups and surf with one/2 people out for 30 min, get paid thousands in cash, and stay in legit hotels. Thats all it is. Why give that up when he obviously still surfs extremely well? I bet if he keeps qualifying, he will be the first 50 year-old on tour, no question. However, i will go out on a limb and say he probably gets injured at pipe before that. No way he can keep taking beatings like he does. Watching him get worked by the rocks on saturday, or sunday, whatever day that was, was pretty brutal. That was one of the first times I’ve seen him actually look his age.
Take the tour away and he still does all those things you mentioned. I for one would blow that popsicle stand and retire to an exotic location. Probably Barbuda, that wave is rad. Just go ahead and buy the whole island type deal.
Ha organised free surf, I like that quip
The milky skinned gamer from Lemoore.
shit in real time they look slower!
Mason’s straight line long boarding on his first scoring wave brought back memories of the 60s, MP doing a ‘cheater 5’ and even Maurice front-footing a Bells tube in Wizards of the Water. If only ADS could do those ‘retro’ moves to move the heart strings of the commentators. Pottz went crazy over Mason’s “radical” floater.
We need a WSL live streaming 24hr webcam on the merchandise booth. Pete Mel’s jersey sales updates are just so fucking riveting.
HA!
ah the old bash Bells syndrome. Early Easter’s by a month , yeah not such a good time of the year and with all the barrels and double overhead 8 sec swells at Snapper , yeah after the best barrel riding event at Snapper , its hard for Bells to outshine that uncrowded Mega surf spot !Unless of course you like a bit of diversity and challenge the surfers out of their comfort zones . Fuck if ya want to pick on something , why the fuck are all the bds slower on tour this year, looks like a bit of an equipment meltdown , unless of course you like everything slowed down a bit , as per snapper, so that ,we can all see a future in surfing that’s slower !!
I love Bells and the fact that all the favorites surf like shit there makes it even better. It seems like a lot of people here equate good surfing with an albino golly wog getting blown out of barrels at Pipe. It’s great but it’s not everything. I’ve been in awe of massive Bells dozens of times. Vicco is an amazing and diverse place to surf. If people don’t like it they can get absolutely fucked.
Does anyone know what cut the pros get from jersey – if it is $80? 10-20%. Kelly wont retire when can still pull some revenue there as well
The psychopathic bottle blonde from – ah forget it.
Any obsessive thought about the king’s retirement Chas? You seem to be chewing on that for a while now…
He’s the only professional surfing I know!
C’mon, pros surfers love you, especially the ones you write the truth about…:)
Im sure Chas has some way of making kelly’s retirement (or non retirement) a racial thing? Perhaps its about Donald Trump oppressing the Syrians?
I think kelly is staying on tour to promote his brands, I think he doesn’t care if he wins just as long as he can do the free promotion
408 BC … Before Chas?
Did he really call her his “mum”? Wanker.
There’s no way….I am assuming ESPN picked it up from some Australian source. Right? I hope.
Imagine how terrified Slater must be at the thought of no longer being a pro surfer.
Perhaps the ladyboy from Rio? Just sayin
It’s why I love Rio